Leonard Warburton Matters (26 June 1881 – 31 October 1951) was an Australian journalist who became a Labour Party politician in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. He was born a British subject in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

, Australia, and fought in the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

. He worked as a journalist in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

, and was managing editor of the ''

Buenos Aires Herald The ''Buenos Aires Herald'' was an English language daily newspaper published in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 1876 to 2017. Its slogan was ''A World of Information in a few words''. History Under the original name of ''The Buenos Ayres Herald'' ...

''. In 1926, Matters proposed in a magazine article that the notorious serial killer

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...

was an eminent doctor, whose son had died from syphilis caught from a prostitute. According to Matters, the doctor, given the pseudonym "Dr Stanley", committed the murders in revenge and then fled to Argentina. Matters claimed he had discovered an account of Stanley's deathbed confession in a South American newspaper. He expanded his ideas into a book, ''The Mystery of Jack the Ripper'', in 1929. The book was marketed as a serious study, but it contains obvious factual errors and the documents it supposedly uses as references have never been found. True crime writer

Edmund Pearson Edmund Lester Pearson (1880–1937) was an American librarian and writer. He was a writer of the "true crime" literary genre. He is best known for his account of the notorious Lizzie Borden murder case. Early life Pearson was born in Newburypo ...

, who was Matters' contemporary, said scathingly, "The deathbed confession bears about the same relation to the facts of criminology as the exploits of Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat do to zoology." Ripper expert and former policeman

Donald Rumbelow Donald Rumbelow (born 1940) is a British former City of London Police officer, crime historian, and ex-curator of the City of London Police's Crime Museum. He has twice been chairman of England's Crime Writers' Association. Career A recognised aut ...

thought the theory was "almost certainly invented", and Stephen Knight, who wrote '' Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution'', thought it was "based on unsupported and palpably false statements". Nevertheless, ''The Mystery of Jack the Ripper'' was the first full-length book on the Ripper, and it inspired further fictional works such as the theatre play ''Murder Most Foul'' and the film ''

''. In the 1929 general election, Matters was elected to the United Kingdom

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

(MP) for

Kennington Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the ...

in London. He held the seat for two years, until his defeat at the

1931 general election Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir ...

, and was unsuccessful when he stood again in

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart bec ...

References

External links

*
Image at Australian War Memorial
{{DEFAULTSORT:Matters, Leonard 1881 births 1951 deaths Australian military personnel of the Second Boer War Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1929–1931 Australian newspaper editors Politicians from Adelaide Writers from Adelaide 20th-century Australian journalists

See also

References

External links